


we'll be alright for forever

by elizaham8957



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Post Series, SO MUCH FLUFF, it goes about as well as you'd expect, stiles and lydia go to IKEA, there's really no plot here okay guys just so much fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 11:16:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13500686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizaham8957/pseuds/elizaham8957
Summary: “I’m debating,” Lydia said, eyes still fixed on the enormous walk in closet before them, “if we really need an office, or if I can turn the spare bedroom into this instead.”“Uh, yeah, we definitely need an office,” Stiles said, taking her by the shoulders and leading her into the next room. “I’m gonna be working on actual cases again. I need somewhere to put my murder board and my string. And you will go insane if you have to do homework at the kitchen table for two years.”“Going insane might be worth it for that shoe rack,” she said, glancing back at the room wistfully. Stiles laughed, guiding her into the display bedroom.“When you win your Field’s Medal and we move into a real house, then you can have your walk-in closet,” he promised. “Shoe rack and all.”





	we'll be alright for forever

**Author's Note:**

> So Allison (im2old4thisotp) took me to IKEA for the first time today, and thus, this fic was born. There is no plot, okay. It's just all fluff and bad furniture name puns. 
> 
> I'm stilesssolo on tumblr and twitter if you wanna tell me what you thought. Thanks for reading! 
> 
> Enjoy!

_“Lydia._ This is the one.”

Stiles had his eyes closed, but he could practically _feel_ Lydia roll her eyes in response.

“This is _not_ the one.”

Stiles cracked one eye open, squinting so he could see his girlfriend. Sure enough, her arms were crossed, her eyebrows raised in that expression that he knew meant she was getting tired of his shit. He grinned cheekily at her, leaning back further into the sectional.

“You need to sit down, okay? Feel the magic of this couch. It is _life changing.”_

“I seriously doubt that,” Lydia said, smirking at him _ever_ so slightly, but she sat next to him anyways, crossing her legs and smoothing out her skirt.

“See?” Stiles said, raising his arms behind his head, sighing contently. “This couch is _wonderful.”_

“It’s _comfortable,”_ Lydia admitted, turning her head to look at him. “But even if it _was_ the style we’re looking for, which it is _not—”_

“Style is overrated,” Stiles mumbled, closing his eyes again. This couch was heavenly. It felt like he was laying on a cloud. Or a sheep. Or cotton candy. He wasn't sure. Something very soft and very fluffy, though. That he knew.

“I already told you, I want a gray couch.” Stiles opened his eyes again, squinting at Lydia through his lashes. She had that look on her face that she got whenever he was being especially ridiculous— her immediate expression was riddled with annoyance, but underneath was that soft, secretive glimmer of affection.

“This couch comes in gray,” he said, holding up the tag for her to survey. She shook her head, barely even glancing at it.

“This couch is way too big,” she insisted, standing up. “It won’t fit in our apartment.

“Ugh, _fine,”_ Stiles said, giving in and standing up, because he knew Lydia was right. “Goodbye, couch,” he said wistfully as Lydia took his hand, tugging him along to the next living room display.

“Come on,” Lydia said, trying not to giggle at his antics. “We have a lot of furniture still to find.”

“That’s what we get for moving cross country,” Stiles said, shrugging, as they continued to wander through IKEA, hands still linked.

“I don’t know why you keep complaining about the move,” Lydia said, looking up at him with that private little grin he _loved._ “You and Scott finally live twenty minutes away from each other again.”

“You’re right,” he said, giving her a look, because one of the biggest perks of Lydia getting a job offer at Stanford was that they got to move back to California. DC had been great for college, and he had loved being at GW— especially when Lydia had moved down to be with him for the last two years of his undergrad, and the complications of a long distance relationship had faded away— but being within driving distance of both his best friend and his father was certainly nice.

“And,” Lydia added, smirking at him in a manner that indicated she was _extremely_ pleased with herself, “now I get to decorate our apartment.”

Stiles scoffed indignantly, swinging their hands as they wandered through the sprawling displays of sofas. “Are you saying you _didn’t_ get to decorate our last apartment? Because there was no way I would have ever picked out our bedroom decor.”

“I am fully aware that if you were in charge of decorating, we would have had a Star Wars themed apartment,” Lydia said, shooting him a look. “But I meant that I get to decorate this one from scratch.” She pulled a face. “Our last apartment was full of mismatched hand-me-downs and stuff you found on Craigslist.”

“Well, we were broke college students, so,” Stiles said, shrugging. Sure, their last apartment hadn’t been as _picturesque_ as Lydia probably would have wanted it to be, but it had been _their_ apartment. The rug might not have matched their hand-me-down couch, but it had been the first couch that had belonged to _both_ of them, in a space that was all theirs.

“And now we’re broke college graduates,” Lydia said, a grin tugging at her lips.

“Broke college graduates with _jobs,”_ Stiles reminded her as they walked into another house display. He’d been working at the FBI since graduation in May, but they had agreed to transfer him to the San Francisco office with little fuss, once he’d explained how his genius girlfriend had been offered a once-in-a-lifetime position in the research labs of Stanford that included a tuition-free master’s degree. They’d flown out to go apartment hunting the next week, and between the logistics of juggling a cross-country move and a long-distance job switch, Stiles and Lydia had ultimately decided it would be easier to just sell their old furniture than try to move it to California. And, as clearly indicated, it wasn’t like either of them were very emotionally attached to anything.

Lydia sighed wistfully as they rounded the corner and caught sight of the couch in this display: it was plush-looking and just modern enough, with straight lines and dark wood legs, and it was slate gray.

 _“This_ is the one,” Lydia said, sinking into the cushions. Stiles sat next to her, leaning back, and he did have to admit, this couch was also comfortable. It didn’t recline, like the other one, but it would also probably look _way_ better in their apartment. And in all honesty, he completely trusted Lydia with the design aspects of their new home. He’d given up trying to decorate back when they’d first moved in together, and she had vetoed the idea of orange and blue throw pillows, regardless of how much of a perfect combination those colors were. (And okay, maybe he’d really just wanted a reminder of their first sort-of-date. But she had let him hang a Mets poster in their bedroom in compensation, so. He really couldn’t complain _that_ much.)

“Agreed,” Stiles said, nodding decisively. He grabbed the tag, snapping a picture of it with his phone so they could find the sofa in the warehouse later. “Alright,” he said, bouncing to his feet, offering Lydia a hand to help tug her off the sofa. “What next?”

They continued to wander the store hand-in-hand, following the arrows on the ground through the maze of furniture displays. They had made it past the kitchens, though not without Lydia moaning at the sight of the white-and-gray kitchen with a double oven and an _enormous_ island, which she had immediately made a beeline for. Stiles had reminded her that the kitchen in the new apartment was way smaller and actually pretty well done, but she had ignored him, running her hands over the quartz countertops, sighing wistfully at the farmhouse sink. “Someday,” she had told him, tilting her head up to look right in his eyes, her expression soft and determined. “Someday we are going to have a big house for our family and the kitchen is going to look just like this.”

Stiles had nodded, smiling softly at her, his lips tugging up in that lopsided grin he saved just for her. His heart had skipped a beat, hearing her say “our family” with such ease and conviction. Like she was sure it would happen. Because he knew she believed as much as he did that they were it for each other, but sometimes, it still amazed him a little bit that Lydia loved him as much as he loved her.

They were in the organizational part of the store now, displays upon displays of bins, racks, and cubbies, storage shelves and closet organizers looming in front of them on the sales floor. They passed another mock-up house, and the first room visible was the gorgeous walk-in closet, complete with a settee and a chandelier. Lydia sort of froze in the doorway, and Stiles could tell from the look on her face her brain was going a mile a minute.

“What?” he said warily, nudging her gently with his shoulder. She didn’t look away from the shoe racks on the far wall— two of them framed the arched doorway into the adjacent room.

“I’m debating,” Lydia said, eyes still fixed on the room, “if we really need an office, or if I can turn the spare bedroom into this instead.”

“Uh, yeah, we definitely need an office,” Stiles said, taking her by the shoulders and leading her into the next room. “I’m gonna be working on actual cases again. I need somewhere to put my murder board and my string. And you will go _insane_ if you have to do homework at the kitchen table for two years.”

“Going insane might be worth it for that shoe rack,” she said, glancing back at the room wistfully. Stiles laughed, guiding her into the display bedroom.

“When you win your Field’s Medal and we move into a _real_ house, then you can have your walk-in closet,” he promised. “Shoe rack and all.”

They made it through the rest of the store without adding _too_ many additional purchases to their list, although looking at their two heaping carts, Stiles was really glad they had borrowed Liam’s truck to get all the furniture home. They wandered into the clearance area together to see if there were any last-minute things to grab, hands still twined, and Stiles played with Lydia’s fingers absentmindedly as she reviewed their list, making sure they hadn’t forgotten anything.

“I think we did it,” Lydia said, looking up to meet his eyes. “We got it all.”

“And it only took us… three hours and fourteen minutes,” Stiles said, glancing at the clock on his phone.

“That’s impressive, considering all the stuff we had to buy,” Lydia said, her free hand running along the corner of the box for their new desk.

“I know,” Stiles said, nodding enthusiastically. “We looked at so many different displays in the past hour that I feel like I could have a show on HGTV now. I have this sudden need to buy eighteen houses and decorate them _all.”_

Lydia just shook her head, rolling her eyes fondly as they made their way through the final displays.

“After we put all this together, I have a feeling you’re never going to want to decorate another house again,” she said, that little smirk still pulling at her mouth.

Stiles grimaced, surveying all the stuff in their carts again. “Do we really have to put all this together today?” he asked, meeting Lydia’s eyes.

“If you want to have furniture,” she said, raising her eyebrows at him, still trying not to grin.

Stiles shrugged, making a face. “Furniture is overrated anyways. We have a bed. We have a stove. That’s all we really need.”

Lydia finally gave in to her desire to laugh, her grin wide as she looked at him, green eyes shining with affection. Stiles grinned back, squeezing her hand in his, his fingers twining through hers.

His eyes skimmed over the displays next to them, reading the name tags of the products on the shelves. “Hey Lyds!” he said, eyes still fixed on a storage drawer in front of them.

“What?” she said, her tone laced with confusion, but her expression immediately grew wary when she saw the shit-eating grin on his face.

“You look really beautiful today,” he told her, grinning even wider as the confusion in her expression became more and more evident.

“What are you doing?” she asked, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

“I’m just trying to pay you a _Komplement,”_ he told her, holding out the drawer’s tag, which bore the same name. Immediately, her expression shifted to that of exasperation, and her hair swished as she shook her head, rolling her eyes exaggeratedly.

“Seriously, Stiles?” she asked, grabbing his hand and pulling him away from the drawers.

“Lydia!” he said, grabbing a clock off the shelf, holding it out towards her. “Why are you in such a _Rusch?”_

“You are so ridiculous,” she said, pulling him to the end of the clearance area, the registers looming ahead.

“You’re just mad that I’m coming up with these amazing puns when you’re so much _Smarta_ than me,” he said, grinning cheekily and offering her a serving dish.

“That’s it,” she said, dropping his hand, turning to face him with a look on her face that was half exasperation and half affection. “I am _leaving_ you in this IKEA.”

“No, don’t do that!” Stiles begged, fighting to keep the grin off his face. He gestured emphatically towards the stack of chairs next to them. “I’m finally on your _Reidar!”_

“Are you physically incapable of _ever_ being serious?” she asked, biting back a smile. He tipped his head back and laughed, moving forward to take her hand again.

“Come on, babe; we’ve been dating for almost five years. You should know this by now.”

“I never stop _hoping,”_ Lydia muttered, although she was smiling again, giving him that look that just tugged at his heart.

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking at her sincerely. “No more furniture puns.”

“No more,” Lydia agreed, squeezing his hand, smiling sweetly at him. “Or you’re sleeping on the unassembled couch.”

 _“Harsh,”_ Stiles said, making a face like she had deeply wounded him. Lydia just laughed again, shaking her head at him. “But if I sleep on the couch, who will you press your freezing cold feet into in the middle of the night?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

Lydia sighed. “Good point,” she admitted. “Alright, I guess you can sleep in the bed with me.” Stiles fist-pumped awkwardly in celebration, almost knocking over a tower of storage bins behind them. Lydia tried not to laugh, failing miserably as she covered her mouth with her hand.

“God, you are such a dork,” she said, and Stiles grinned cheekily at her, pushing their carts into the line for the registers.

“And yet, you still love me,” he responded, squeezing her hand.

Lydia smiled back at him, her grin beautiful and full and warm.

“And yet, I do.”


End file.
